Christmas 2008

What a beautiful day we had today. We started our Christmas at 6:00am. It took us 2 hours to open up all the gifts. Of course, we only allow one gift at a time to be opened. That way we can all enjoy what everyone else got. It's such fun.

Sarah got a digital camera which she did not expect. Now she is ready to take tons of pictures of her friends to put on Facebook. I can't wait to see them! Unfortunately, the picture I took of her with her camera did not come out (blurry) so you can't see it. I'll try to take another photo. Also, she got tons of books, clothes, music and jewelry.

Mandie got a beautiful jewelry box (which is actually a piece of furniture) for her bedroom. She outgrew the jewelry box we gave her last year for Christmas. She loved all her gifts! She's been building her K-Nex all day. It looks like it's going to be huge!

What a great Dad to put the legs on her jewelry box! :)

I bought Mandie and Sarah quite a bit of handmade jewelry this year from my fellow Mom Packers and also from my favorite "handmade shops" - Etsy, Shophandmade.com, and Artfire. I actually bought several of our gifts this year from those sites. I even made a sale yesterday from Shophandmade. That was a nice surprise for me. Mandie's favorite jewelry was from my friend, Lisa, in Illinois. She does awesome work! (www.mycolorfultreasures.com). Check out her website!

Timothy got his very own junior golf clubs. He's looking forward to learning how to play golf with his Dad :) I'm not sure who is more excited about that - Phil or Timothy. He also got a remote control robot, detective kit and a bunch of other smaller things.

We all love "Guess Who." What a great game!

Abby got tons of clothes for Christmas this year. She's so girly and is definitely a "fashion bug." And of course, everything had "pink" in it. :) She also got a toy ironing board and iron. She's been ironing her new clothes all day :) She, of course, got tons of Polly Pockets and Barbies. I still think the iron was her favorite gift.

Last night was the first Christmas Eve that we didn't attend the IBC Christmas Program in 8 years. We decided to go to Valley Creek instead. It was wonderful. I love this church! The worship is awesome and the message was just what we all needed to hear to be reminded of the true meaning of Christmas. It was beautiful!

We had another wonderful Christmas! It was very relaxing and fun. I'm so blessed. Thank you, Lord!

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

Mandie's Art Picture

Mandie's friend made this cool picture from a photo of her. He's a very talented artist! Don't you love it?

Timothy's Art Work - Fall 2008

October 28, 2008

Last year for Christmas we got Timothy a sketch pad. Since he loves to draw and has done so many of them, I thought I would post them on our blog so others can enjoy them.

Timothy's Baseball Season - Fall 2008

October 28, 2008

Another baseball season for Timothy. But, this time it was more fun because Dad (Phil) got to be his coach! What a great time they had together playing baseball together. Timothy spent a lot of the season being the catcher. He really had a great time doing it and did it very well.

Since Phil was the coach he got to choose the name for the team. So, being from Baltimore, he chose The Orioles. What a great idea!

Below are some pictures from the season...

Abby Is Learning to Read...

Fall 2008

Instead of starting Abby in Kindergarten, I've decided to spend this school year helping her learn her letter sounds and alphabet (pre-school stuff). But, to my surprise, she has already learned most of her letter sounds, even though she can't always remember all the letter names. I've decided to use the "Sing, Spell, Read and Write" curriculum with her and she is loving it!

She is very proud to have her "school work" displayed on our kitchen wall. We hang up all her letter pages as she completes the workbook pages for it. After she gets to the letter "z," we plan to put the pages in sheet protectors and make a book out of them. She is really enjoying learning and keeps asking me when she is going to be reading. I tell her it will be very soon. She's very excited about reading!

Vacation Bible School 2008

This summer we decided to participate in the VBS program at a church near our home instead of through our home church, IBC. The theme of VBS was "Power Lab." The kids absolutely loved every minute of it. It was so much fun for all of us. Friday night they had a carnival to celebrate the end of the week. They had pony rides. Abby was the only one able to do this, of course, because of her age - she loved it! This was her first time on a pony. They also had a rock climbing wall that Timothy and Mandie enjoyed. Below are the pictures that we took...